Earlier this year Renaissance Pictures, the company run by Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert, filed suit against Award Pictures, a small outfit that was hoping to make an Evil Dead sequel. While Raimi and Tapert have wavered in their commitment to make a fourth Evil Dead movie (not counting the just-wrapped remake directed by Fede Alvarez), they are certain of one thing: they don’t want anyone else making Evil Dead 4.

So when Award Pictures tried to follow through on a long-stated goal of making Evil Dead 4: Consequences (that’s the real title, no joke) Renaissance Pictures recited the passages from an old book that summons lawyers instead of demons. And now a court has ruled that Award Pictures has to back off. Read More »

There are strange things going on out in the woods. Not the sort of strange things that happen in Sam Raimi‘s first two Evil Dead movies. No, these are the things that happen after those films become successful, even iconic. In 1979 Raimi, his producer Robert Tapert, and actor Bruce Campbell formed Renaissance Pictures, which made The Evil Dead. Two more films, Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn, and Army of Darkness, were produced, and there has long been talk of a fourth.

That’s where things get weird. Raimi and Tapert once said they’d never do a fourth film. Another company, Award Pictures, took that to mean that Renaissance had abandoned the future use of The Evil Dead name, and wants to make its own fourth film, called either Evil Dead: Consequences (chortle) or Evil Dead: Genesis of the Necronomicon. Now Raimi, Tapert, and Campbell are locked in a legal battle with Award Pictures. Read More »